From Beirut to Gaza, Lebanese pray during the Week of Christian Unity
Eastern Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs, the apostolic nuncio and thousands of Christians took part in an “ecumenical" concert. Accompanied by a choir of 250, the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra performed a "liturgical concert" at the Beirut Forum, the brainchild of a 29-year-old lawyer-cum-musician Marc Merhej and Archbishop Antoine Bou-Najem. “On the path of unity, the Christian people have preceded us.”
Beirut (AsiaNews) – This year's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in Lebanon (19-24 January) left the beaten path for an extraordinary ecumenical meeting, with a choir of 250 singers and the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra, fruit of the close cooperation between the Maronite Church and the laity.
Half a liturgical concert and half a prayer meeting, the event, which anointed the skies of the Lebanese capital, was held in a huge hall on the seafront, the Beirut Forum, in the presence of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox patriarchs, the Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Paolo Borgia and nearly 9,000 people who came from the four corners of Lebanon.
A bold young Lebanese lawyer-cum-musician and choir leader, Marc Merhej, 29, was at the heart of the performance. In coordination with Maronite Bishop Antoine Bou-Najem of Antelias, his former teacher of religious education, Marc Merhej achieved a tour de force that took him two years to prepare.
Backed by the symphony orchestra, his choir worked wonders, alternating prayers and liturgical songs in eleven languages (Arabic, French, English, Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Armenian, Chaldean, Spanish, Greek, and Swahili), not to mention the sign language for the hearing impaired and the language of silence, a "prayer of the heart" or "mental prayer" as passed onto us by the Fathers and the great ones who prayed.
The meeting transcended musical conventions. The patriarchs and bishops present had come to attend "one more concert" but were instead gobsmacked by the power of the Trinitarian praise that rose from the assembly, with the Orthodox hearing the echo of their cantillations while others listened to the harmonious modulations of singing in tongues.
“We can't yet celebrate the Eucharist together, but couldn't we praise together?" asked Marc Merhej, who said that he wanted to "add to the unity in charity, in witness, and in martyrdom, that of unity in praise."
In Lebanon, the Week of Unity is backed by the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), an organisation that includes almost all Christian traditions, including Eastern Orthodox, Orthodox, Catholic (Latin and Eastern), Anglican and Protestant.
The Virgin Mary, explains Marc Merhej, found her central place in this ecumenical prayer not in her role of intercession, so dear to Catholic and Orthodox doctrines, but through the prayer of praise that she herself raised to the Father to realise the “benevolent plan he had made in advance, in the fullness of times, to sum up all things in one chief, Christ, in heaven and on earth” (Ephesians 1:9+).
All doors open
“Marc came to ask for my authorisation for an initiative that, in short, is a Church project,” the bishop said. “It's quite simple," I replied. “The country is in crisis and economic difficulties are piling up. At the first door that closes, we abandon this project.”
“I had a thousand other things to do," naively said the bishop. “But all the doors opened, even to rent the Beirut Forum. Faced with Marc's candour, who confessed to him that he had come to meet him 'counting on providence', the hall owner made an unhoped-for act of great generosity.”
Encouraged by the bishop, other rich people also put their hands in their pockets. Still, payment had to be made to the symphony orchestra for the rental of the chairs, stage, lighting, sound, and everything else.
“It was such a success that some people said that we could have given this money to the poor," said Archbishop Bou-Najem. “To which I replied citing the very words of Our Lord: ‘The poor you will always have with you’.”
The bishop welcomed the fact that the assembly prayed for Beirut, a "city of death" divided by war, and partly destroyed by the 4 August 2020 port explosion.
We must also be grateful to the organisers for praying for Gaza, which is being destroyed day after day under the horrified and indignant gaze of the whole world.
"The prayer of praise unites Christians," said the bishop, who is thinking of creating prayer of praise groups in all the dioceses of Lebanon. We must overcome the hostility and indifference mentioned in the Prayer for Unity and move on from offences dating back hundreds of years, which made brothers and sisters no longer speak to one another.”
"Grudges kill,” he noted. “But on the path of unity, the Christian people have preceded us.”
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18/01/2022 18:52
16/01/2022 08:00
